Colombian court orders mining companies to return land to natives

BOGOTA, Sept 25 (Reuters) - A Colombian legal tribunal has
ordered 11 companies to halt gold-mining operations in a
50,000-hectare (124,000-acre) reserve in the northwest of the
country and return the land to the native tribe that previously
lived there.

The ruling, the first of its kind in the Andean nation,
restores the territory in Choco department to the 7,270-person
Embera Katio tribe, which inhabited the area before it was
forced out by mining activities and violent illegal armed
groups.

Choco, located on the Pacific coast, is strategically
valuable to drug traffickers, Marxist guerrillas and right-wing
paramilitary groups. The Embera Katio were victims of killings
and forcible recruitment when they lived there.

"The natives who inhabited the reserve ... were forcibly
displaced to large urban centers," reads the ruling, to which
Reuters has access.

The government awarded mining concessions in the Bagado
municipality beginning in 2008 and received applications to
conduct operations in some 31,000 hectares, 62 percent of the
reserve, the ruling said.

The decision orders the National Mining Agency, in
coordination with the military, to "remove people from outside
the community who are carrying out mining activities within the
reserve."

The ruling annuls any titles and concessions to the area
held by companies, which include South Africa's AngloGold
Ashanti.

AngloGold Ashanti would not comment in detail but said it
shares concession in the area with other mining companies and
does not operate there directly.

Other companies named in the ruling include local
Exploraciones Choco Colombia, Gongora and El Molino.

The decision requires the government to reinstate the Embera
Katio's land rights and aid the tribe in their return to the
area, including making improvements in security.

According to the United Nations and human rights groups
Colombia has 87 different native tribes, with around 1 million
members, who are at risk of disappearing, due largely to the
country's half-century armed conflict which has killed over
200,000 people and displaced millions.
(Reporting by Luis Jaime Acosta; Writing by Julia Symmes Cobb;
Editing by Richard Chang and Lisa Shumaker)